


Whatever Returns from Oblivion

by billiholic (yndigot)



Series: Rust and Stardust [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU: Chekov is Not a Ladies' Man, Abusive Relationships, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence, M/M, Officer/Enlisted Relationship, Post-Star Trek Beyond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-02 12:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15796962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yndigot/pseuds/billiholic
Summary: How Pavel Chekov left an abusive relationship, almost tanked his career for a fling, learned that he deserved better, and finally went on his first real date.*Please heed the tags and chapter notes for content warnings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is about someone who is now an adult, but who is dealing with the aftermath of long-term abusive relationship that included childhood sexual abuse throughout his teenage years. There are depictions of this abuse throughout the story. The sexual abuse is not particularly explicit, but there's some physical abuse and a lot of coercive control depicted, especially early on. (Later chapters should focus less on the abuse and more on subsequent relationships, but the first few focus very heavily on the abuse.)
> 
> There is an incident of drunken domestic violence which occurs 'off screen' in the first chapter and which shapes the narrative that follows. There are also fleeting depictions of sexual situations within an abusive relationship (this includes the above mentioned CSA as well as sex within the same relationship once both parties are adults). 
> 
> The victim of this abuse spends a lot of time defending his abuser and minimizing or justifying the abuse. I hope it's clear within the story that this reflects the way he is processing his experiences at the time, not the views of the author.
> 
> I hope the way that medicine and interactions with law enforcement/bureaucracy are depicted comes across realistically. I did some research, but if you're in one of those fields or just particularly knoweldgable and read this thinking, "That's not how any of this works!" I'm sorry, and I'm sure you're right.
> 
> Title references a stanza of the poem "The Wild Iris" by Louise Glück:  
> You who do not remember  
> passage from the other world  
> I tell you I could speak again: whatever  
> returns from oblivion returns  
> to find a voice:

Hikaru ignored the first buzz of his comm because he was not on call, he was lying in bed with his husband — something he would not get to enjoy for much longer — and it was the middle of the fucking night.

A moment later, there was a second, constant, pulsing buzz — someone was actually calling, not just sending him a drunken, late-night, shore-leave text message — and Ben nudged him. Hikaru reluctantly rolled over to answer the comm before his husband started to get irritated with him for letting it ring.

"Sulu," he said, trying not to yawn directly into the receiver.

"Hikaru, I sent you an address — can you come?"

"Pasha?" His friend sounded breathless and panicked on the other end of the line, and suddenly Hikaru was wide awake. "What's wrong?"

"Big trouble. I would not ask, but ... _please_."

•••••

Hikaru took the nearly deserted hover-train two stops from the apartment where he had been staying with Ben and Demora while they were on the Yorktown to another neighborhood of small but fairly nice housing for civilian contractors. He got to the right building and used the code Pasha gave him to get in and take the turbolift up to the fifth floor.

Pasha was waiting in the corridor when he got there. The left side of his face was red and starting to swell, his lip was split, and he was cradling his left arm. He looked as panicked as he sounded on the comm.

" _Pasha_ ," Hikaru breathed. "What happened? God, we need to get you to the hospital."

Pasha shook his head. "I can wait. Inside..." With a wince, he nodded to the door behind him — the one that led to a small apartment.

Just inside the door was a man, lying on the floor. He was breathing but unconscious and bleeding from a head wound that Hikaru couldn't quite see without turning him. There was broken glass and the remnant of a shattered bottle neck on the ground near him.

"He won't wake up," Pasha said softly.

"Oh my god." Hikaru got out his comm. "We need to call emergency services..."

Pasha put his hand over Hikaru's comm before he could initiate the call. " _Please_ , no. They will ask questions."

"Pasha, he has a head wound — he might _die_."

Pasha looked at him helplessly. "They will call Security and I will be arrested."

Hikaru stared at him, wide-eyed. " _You_..." He gestured to the man on the floor.

Pasha nodded. "On the head with the bottle."

Hikaru had a hard time imagining Pasha breaking a bottle over someone's head. "Who is this guy?"

Pasha hesitated, but Hikaru could see him weighing his options, seeing that there wasn't a good way to get out of giving some kind of explanation for what had happened. "Borya," he said finally, reluctantly.

Hikaru tried to contain the urge to stare at the guy on the floor with open curiosity now that he knew. Pasha had mentioned his boyfriend a hundred times, but Hikaru had never actually met him in all the time they'd been friends. It certainly made Pasha's reluctance to call the authorities a lot clearer. Hikaru wanted to give Pasha the benefit of the doubt, but breaking a bottle over his boyfriend's head undeniably _looked bad_. Then again, Pasha's face let him know that whatever had happened hadn't exactly been one sided.

He opened his comm again. "I'm not calling emergency services or Security, okay?"

Pasha nodded, biting his lip and making a helpless noise in the back of his throat.

It took a few moments for Ben to pick up.

"Hey babe," Hikaru said, trying to keep his voice light. He knew Ben would still hear the stress and panic, but he didn't want to scare him too much.

It didn't seem like it worked. "Hikaru, _what_ is going on?"

"I need you to get Demora up and take her to the Enterprise," he said. "Drop her off with Nyota and then get Doctor McCoy. I'm going to send you an address, and I need you to bring him here, okay?"

"What's going on?" Now there was a note of panic in Ben's voice as well.

"Tell him to bring the bag he takes on away missions, okay? There's — I'm fine, and I think Pasha's going to be alright, but there's been a medical emergency and I need him to come here."

"Wouldn't it be faster just to comm him? If it's an emergency..."

Hikaru shook his head, even though Ben couldn't see. "Babe, I'll explain when you get here, but I don't know if he'll answer his personal comm in the middle of the night, and I really don't want a record of that call going through official channels."

•••••

Leonard was used to being woken up in the middle of the night. It was one of the joys of being CMO on a starship — you never _really_ stopped being on call.

But the newly commissioned Enterprise-A didn't even launch for another week — only a few of the senior officers had moved on to their quarters on the ship already, so outside of working hours, the place was dead. And he certainly didn't usually get woken up by the First Officer, Communications Chief, and a civilian who he _thought_ was married to the Senior Helmsman, accompanied by the very cute, very sleepy little girl whose picture usually rested next to said helmsman's console on the bridge.

"It's 0200," he said. Give or take. He wasn't quite awake yet, although there was nothing like the adrenaline of a medical emergency to shock the system.

"Something's wrong with Pasha, and Hikaru wouldn't tell me what it was over the comm, but he said he needs you to bring your away mission bag and come down to help," Ben Sulu said. "Please, Doctor McCoy. Hikaru wouldn't have had me bother you if it weren't an emergency."

Leonard shook his head to clear it and went to the closet to get his bag. "Who's Pasha?"

"Pavel Chekov," Uhura told him. She took the little girl from Ben Sulu's arms as Ben started to lead Leonard off the ship.

"This is highly irregular," Spock said from where he followed, just a few steps behind Uhura. "If Lieutenant Chekov experienced a medical emergency while on leave on Yorktown, surely it would make more sense for him to go to Yorktown Medical. If they required any information from his primary care physician, then surely _they_ ought to be the ones contacting the Enterprise Medical Department."

"I _know_ you find this irregular," Uhura said, and from her tone, Leonard could tell that she and Spock had been going around in circles about this ... well, probably since Ben Sulu arrived.

"It makes very little sense for Lieutenant Sulu to send his husband to contact a specific physician on Lieutenant Chekov's behalf in the case of a genuine medical emergency."

"He's had time to call Hikaru _and_ Leonard," Uhura said. "If he were willing to go to Yorktown Medical, he would have gone already. Maybe he's embarrassed. Maybe he's _scared_. At least this way, _someone_ is going to make sure he's alright." The two of them turned, with the Sulus' little girl, down a separate corridor that led to the First Officer's quarters, and their voices faded away.

Leonard followed Ben Sulu out into the docking area and then toward the hovertrain station. At this time of night, they were alone on the train car.

"I don't suppose your husband told you what kind of medical emergency Lieutenant Chekov was experiencing," he said. Honestly, it was too much to hope.

Ben shook his head, then hesitated. "He ... did say that he didn't want to comm you. He said he didn't want a record of the call to show up on official channels."

Leonard's eyebrows raised. "Exactly where are we going?"

Ben shrugged. "I don't really know. Hikaru just gave me an address. I think..." He hesitated again. "I think Pasha's boyfriend is working on the Yorktown right now. It might be his apartment."

The apartment wasn't far from the docks — just a few train stops and Ben got off, Leonard following close behind as they made their way to a residential building and up to the fifth floor where Lieutenant Sulu was waiting for them in the corridor.

"Thanks for coming, Doctor." He looked stressed and exhausted and ... honestly, kind of scared.

"What the hell is going on?"

Sulu opened an apartment door and the first thing Leonard saw was a body on the floor. Ben gasped. Leonard immediately knelt down to check for a pulse and signs of breathing. His eyes glanced around the area surrounding the body, taking in the broken glass, the blood — and Lieutenant Chekov, sitting curled up against the wall, watching him with wide eyes. He was clearly pretty badly injured as well, but conscious.

"I'll be with you as soon as I can, Mr. Chekov," he said, trying to sound reassuring while he dealt with the more pressing patient first.

His pulse was slow, but strong, and he was breathing — shallowly, but breathing. He stank of alcohol.

"He was hit on the head with the bottle?" Leonard asked, looking up at Chekov. Chekov nodded. "And he's drunk?" Chekov nodded again. Leonard got out his tricorder to make sure the man was stable enough to be moved, then motioned to Sulu. "Help me get him into the recovery position — his legs, you move his legs, I want to be real careful about his neck..."

A few more scans and he relaxed a bit. No bleeding on the brain. The head wound was bloody, but shallow. Mild concussion. Blood alcohol high enough to be _very_ concerning. He groaned as they moved him and his eyes fluttered open. He mumbled something that sounded a bit like, "Who?" and then, "Where?" like he really wasn't clear on what was going on around him at the moment.

"What's your name?" Leonard asked him.

The man made a soft groaning noise and then tried to take in a deep breath. Leonard asked again, and this time, the man replied, "Boris."

"Good," Leonard said. "Boris what?"

Another soft groan, but then he said, "Boris Sorkin."

Leonard looked up at Chekov for confirmation and he nodded. So, that was something.

He used the tricorder to shine a light in Sorkin's eyes and measure pupillary response, then asked, "Do you know the stardate, Mr. Sorkin?"

Sorkin groaned and mumbled. Leonard took that as a 'no.'

He looked up at the Sulus, who were hovering nearby. "Mr. Sulu — can you and your husband step outside for a moment? I need to talk to Mr. Chekov."

Sulu gave Chekov a meaningful look, like he was willing to fight to stay in the room if Chekov wanted him to, but Chekov shook his head — and then winced at the pain the movement caused.

Once the Sulus were outside, Leonard went over to scan Chekov, kneeling down in front of him. Broken clavicle. Orbital rim fracture. There was a hell of a contusion on his jaw and his lip was split, but at least it didn't look like the mandible was actually broken.

"You gonna tell me what happened?" he asked softly.

Chekov, moving very gingerly, looked up at him. "Borya will be okay?"

Leonard nodded. "He's drunk and concussed. But the concussion ... isn't as bad as I thought at first glance. The alcohol is _at least_ as responsible as the concussion for the fact that he's having trouble staying conscious. He's stable for the moment, but confused, and I can't fix what's wrong with him without admitting him to the hospital."

Chekov made a distressed sounding noise and closed his eyes, but he didn't say anything.

"This your boyfriend?" Leonard asked gently. Chekov made grunt that sounded like affirmation. "You the one that hit him over the head with that bottle?" Affirmative grunt again. "Looks like he did a number on you first, though, didn't he?" Chekov didn't say anything to that — just opened his eyes again and looked up at Leonard. Leonard couldn't help but think that, just for that moment, Chekov looked so incredibly young.

He reached out to place what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Chekov's knee. "I'm going to have to have him transported to Yorktown Medical," he said, slowly. "I can take you back to the Enterprise and treat you there, but I don't think that's a good idea. I have privileges at Yorktown Medical while we're docked. I think you need to go there and get your injuries properly documented before we fix you up. _Legally_ , I think that's going to help you."

" _Legally_ ," Chekov repeated. His eyes were dazed and Leonard couldn't tell how well any of this was penetrating.

"Legally, if you let me admit you to Yorktown Medical and have your injuries documented, then you get to show Yorktown Security that your boyfriend beat the holy tar out of you before you cracked that bottle over his head," Leonard said. "At that point, legally, this looks like self-defense. If I take you back to the Enterprise to treat you — after you called me instead of calling emergency services — suddenly, legally, this looks like we're trying to hide something. You understand? You need to start thinking about how this is going to play with the authorities."

"I don't want to contact authorities," Chekov said. "I don't want to talk to Yorktown Security or other doctors. This is why Hikaru called _you_."

"Listen, kid," Leonard said, trying not to sound like he was being too hard on him — but he needed him to understand. "We're past the point where you get to make that call. I will try to keep anyone from involving Yorktown Security if that's what you want, but your boyfriend _needs_ to go to the hospital so he can be monitored until he's sober and has a clean brain scan. We're not playing games with his life in this apartment. He's going to Yorktown Medical. Are you?"

The hard look on Chekov's face made Leonard afraid he was about to dig his heels in and refuse, but finally he — very carefully — nodded. "Okay," he said softly.

Leonard patted his knee. "Smart choice."

•••••

So, evidently Chekov had a thing for older men. That was all Leonard could think about as he got Boris Sorkin's files in order and had him admitted to Yorktown Medical. It was a _wildly_ inappropriate train of thought, but Sorkin wasn't at all what Leonard would have expected if he'd ever tried to imagine the sort of person Chekov would date. He _hadn't_ tried to imagine such a thing before, obviously, but Sorkin still managed to surprise him.

The cut on the back of Sorkin's head was closed up, he was starting to detox, and his brain scans were looking good. He was alert and talking. He'd also thrown up three times and had a hell of a headache, but that was to be expected. Leonard had only spoken to him briefly once he was coherent. He had an accent — not nearly as heavy as Chekov's, but similar — and occasionally muttered words in a language Leonard assumed was Russian. He asked where 'Pasha' was, and Leonard let him know that Chekov was doing fine, but didn't elaborate. When Sorkin asked to see him, Leonard told him no, more gruffly than he'd intended, then excused himself and promptly had responsibilities for his care transferred to another doctor.

Chekov had his injuries carefully documented, bones set and repaired, and his bruising lessened with the help of a dermal regenerator. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, everyone in the Emergency Department had seen enough cases of domestic violence over the years that they knew better than to call Yorktown Security right away, even before Leonard told them that Chekov was unlikely to be cooperative right off the bat. Leonard hadn't worked in a regular hospital in years now, but he remembered well enough that dragging the cops into an already tense, violent situation could just as easily make things worse instead of better. When Leonard could, he preferred to talk to the patient first rather than throwing them head first into a potentially traumatizing encounter with law enforcement.

When a nurse approached him with Chekov's chart pulled up on a PADD, he ended up wishing Sorkin was already well on his way to being arrested.

"Doctor McCoy?" the nurse said. "We did a full body scan on Pavel Chekov to make sure we didn't miss any injuries that weren't quite so visible. He's fine. Mostly. But I really think you should look at this."

The degree of bruising and mucosal tearing was not severe enough that it really required serious intervention — an analgesic and warning to abstain for a while was the most Leonard would probably recommend to most patients under normal circumstances — but it was certainly indicative of ... well, vigorous sex with insufficient lubrication.

"I know the injuries aren't that bad, but it looks awfully suspicious on top of everything else." The nurse handed the PADD off to Leonard. "He knows you, doesn't he? He already trusts you. You should really encourage him to talk to Security."

Leonard ran a hand over his face and then nodded. God, what a mess.

•••••

Despite being mostly patched up, Chekov was still holding himself very carefully, looking a little black and blue and very, very exhausted when Leonard approached.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

Chekov nodded.

"I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that showed up on the full body scan," he said. At that, Chekov looked up, clearly unsure where this was going. "There were some signs of sexual trauma."

Chekov immediately shook his head.

Leonard pressed on. "I know it's uncomfortable to talk about. But if you want him to be charged with sexual assault, you should probably have a more thorough exam done."

Chekov made a point to meet Leonard's eyes when he answered. "I was not raped. I do not want him to be prosecuted. I know what you saw on your scan, but rough sex is not against the law."

"Okay," Leonard said, holding up his hands and hoping he could avoid ever hearing Chekov say the words 'rough sex' again. "Okay. I just want to make sure you know all your options. You can have the exam and then sleep on it if you want — give yourself a little time and space to clear your head and think about what you want to tell the police. But you're gonna have trouble coming back to do the exam later if you change your mind."

"I will not change my mind," Chekov said sharply. "I was not assaulted. Not ... sexually assaulted," he corrected

Leonard wasn't convinced, but he didn't imagine he was going to get Chekov to budge. "Yorktown Security is gonna want to know about those other injuries too," he said, although no one had called Yorktown Security yet. He wasn't sure Chekov knew that. Maybe they could get him talking to someone and he'd change his mind.

Chekov shook his head. "I would just like to get my things out of his apartment and go home."

Leonard nodded. "Okay. And ... what about the next time this happens?"

"There will not be a next time," Chekov said with finality.

"Because he's the kind of guy who promises he'll never lay a finger on you again?" Leonard asked. He'd heard that story a hundred times working in the Emergency Room back in Atlanta. He hardly ever convinced someone to change their mind. Most of them went right back to whoever roughed them up, and a few months later, they'd be sitting in his ER again.

Chekov surprised him. "I will not be seeing him again. Not alone in his apartment like this, anyway." He looked at Leonard with a tired expression. "I know what you think, but we have been together for eight years and he has never put hands on me like this before. Things have been not good between us for a while, and I thought to fix things when we were together during my leave, but this ... this means it is finished."

In any other situation, Leonard would have been relieved to hear that Chekov wasn't planning on going back to a relationship where he was clearly in danger, but that relief got pushed aside by something else entirely. "What d'you mean you've been together for eight years?"

It seemed to take a moment for Chekov to realize why there was suddenly anger in Leonard's voice. "We met in San Francisco when I began to study at the Academy."

"You were _thirteen_ when you started at Starfleet Academy."

Chekov nodded. "Yes."

"He's _my age_ ," Leonard said. He swallowed hard and tried to pick his jaw up off the floor.

Chekov shrugged, but agreed. "Probably yes, about the same age as you are."

"How old was he when the two of you met?"

Leonard could see that Chekov was shutting down on him — beginning to get defensive. "He was twenty-eight. I do not see how this is any of your business."

"Was he having sex with you when you were thirteen and he was twenty-eight?"

That was it — Leonard knew he'd lost Chekov's cooperation by the shuttered expression on his face. "Things which do not pertain to what happened tonight are not your concern. You wanted my injuries documented so that I would not be accused of assaulting Borya without cause, yes? And you have done that. Now let me go home."

•••••

Leonard was the one who ended up calling Yorktown Security. They were no help. The officer who came to take the report spoke to Chekov and Sorkin, but all she would say was that it was unlikely any charges would be filed.

"I'm sorry Doctor McCoy," she told him. "I know you're frustrated. But no one on Yorktown can prosecute a crime that took place on Earth, _years_ ago, with no evidence and no victim."

"You have a victim!" Leonard told her, just clinging to the restraint that kept him from shouting. "He's sitting right there in the ER!"

She sighed. "Lieutenant Chekov is twenty-one now, and he told us that nothing inappropriate happened between him and Mr. Sorkin when he was underage."

Leonard's eyebrows shot up. "Well, that's a load of horse shit because he told _me_ he was molested by the creep when he was thirteen!"

"He told us that he said he _met_ Mr. Sorkin when he was thirteen and you misunderstood," the officer said with another deep sigh. "Now, obviously they can't be allowed to assault one another. We've talked to both of them. They were both in bad shape when they came in and neither of them is interested in pressing charges. As long as they leave each other alone, it's unlikely either of them will be prosecuted, but a judge is still probably going to put a no-contact order in place until the Enterprise leaves Yorktown. We've arranged for an officer to accompany Lieutenant Chekov to retrieve his belongings from Mr. Sorkin's apartment. If Lieutenant Chekov insists their relationship wasn't sexual until after he turned seventeen, then there's nothing else we can do."

Leonard felt about ready to pull his hair out. "Why else would a twenty-eight year old man be hanging around an unsupervised thirteen year old boy like that?"

"I don't know," the officer said. She looked almost as disappointed and helpless as Leonard felt. "Honestly, I think you're probably right. You did the right thing reporting this. I find their relationship _highly_ suspect. But it's not _illegal_ to hang around a kid half your age. It's not _illegal_ for an adult to befriend a child."

The officer quickly tapped away at her PADD and McCoy felt his comm vibrate. When he checked, he saw a data drop with her official contact information. "Have him get in touch if he changes his mind," she said. "Successful prosecution in cases like this depends almost entirely on the testimony of the victims. So unless Lieutenant Chekov is willing to confirm that they were having sexual contact when he was underage and make an official complaint, all I can do is take your report and promise we'll keep an eye out for anyone else Sorkin might have abused. Maybe we'll get lucky and another victim will be willing to report him."

Finding more victims didn't sound _lucky_ to Leonard, but he knew what she meant — it was highly unlikely that Chekov was the only one.

•••••

On his way to discharge Chekov, Leonard stopped at the computer in the nursing station to do a little quick research. He gave Chekov his pain medication and signed off on his release. And then he sat down on the bed next to him and in a way that he hoped was comforting and friendly, although Chekov still looked guarded and a little skittish.

"I looked up the statute of limitations for prosecuting someone for sex with a minor in San Francisco. You have until your thirtieth birthday to make a report, but sooner is always better."

Chekov shook his head, got up from the bed, and started to gather his things. "I know you have trouble understanding this, Doctor, but I do not wish to report him. He did not do anything to me that I did not wish him to do."

"I don't actually have a lot of trouble understanding that you, as a thirteen year old, felt special having an adult treat you like you were all grown up," Leonard told him. "But I like to think that, as an adult yourself now, you might look back and see how unhealthy and inappropriate it was for him to do that to you. If you don't think that what he did had any negative effect on you, then fine. But what about the next kid he does this to? Think about him."

That made Chekov tense up. "There will not be another kid. He was not attracted to me because he likes little boys. He was attracted to me, as a person, despite my age, not because of it. Just because you do not see this does not make it untrue."

"I can _easily_ see why someone would be attracted to you for the person that you are now. I can even understand someone meeting you when you were thirteen and realizing there was something special about you." God, Leonard had thought the idea of having a seventeen year old on the bridge had been insanity, but he could tell from the moment he met Chekov that there was something special about the kid. But even then, just a few years ago, he'd been a _kid_. "What I don't understand is an adult looking at a thirteen year old boy and wanting to have sex with him. It doesn't matter how smart, or mature, or special that thirteen year old is — he's still a child. Any adult who wants to have sex with him has a serious perversion, and I think it's naïve to assume that he won't do this again to another kid."

Chekov gingerly pulled on his jacket, then looked at Leonard with a determined set to his bruised jaw. "You are wrong about him."

Leonard sighed. "If you're not going to report him, then I really hope I am. But I don't think so."

•••••

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been dithering a lot about posting this because it's got a kind of dicey subject matter and I wasn't sure if I was writing something anyone else would want to read, or if I was just writing this for myself. I've got about 20K written in rough form and a second chapter basically complete — the next few chapters spend a lot more time in Pavel's head, flash back a bit to the actual relationship with Borya, and hopefully let Pavel show a bit more of his own personality. 
> 
> I'm not promising a regular update schedule, but if other people seem to interested in seeing where it goes, I promise to share as I chip away at it.
> 
> My writing blog is nearly empty, but I'd be happy to have you come talk to me on [tumblr](http://billiholic.tumblr.com/). If anyone is interested, I'll probably eventually post some rambling about things like rank in this story, which I spent WAY too much time thinking about as I worked on this. I have a lot of feelings about rank in AOS.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> «Text between chevron quotation marks is spoken in Russian.» 
> 
> There is no graphic dub-con/non-con in this chapter, but there is reference to sex within an abusive relationship.
> 
> This not a super great representation of how mandated reporting works in real life (at least in the 21st century United States). I've squished and bent the rules some to make it work for this story and handwaved it as "this is what the laws will be in the 23rd century Federation." Also, McCoy doesn't necessarily follow best practice re: telling Chekov upfront what he does and does not have to report. My endless appreciation to all readers for letting me play a little fast and loose.
> 
> Christine Chapel is back on the Enterprise after several years working on the outer frontier just because I like her and I wanted her here.

McCoy discharged Pavel with directions to come to the medbay on Enterprise that afternoon for a check up and another pass with the dermal regenerator to clear up the last of his bruising. "Get some rest," McCoy said. "You should be cleared for duty tomorrow — day after at the latest."

Pavel didn't want to be on medical leave — he wanted to distract himself somewhere deep in the guts of the engineering deck. But he was exhausted and he didn't want to answer the questions that would come from showing up to work with a black eye and bruised jaw, so he wordlessly signed off on the PADD to say that he understood his discharge instructions. Giving the doctor the silent treatment wasn't the height of maturity, but it meant they weren't arguing about Borya anymore.

He was supposed to meet the security officer who was going to take him to collect his things from Borya's apartment, but she wasn't right there waiting when McCoy dismissed him, so he started to wander a bit. He poked his head behind curtains until he found Borya. The biobed was pulsing and beeping in a way that seemed to indicate that everything was fine, but Borya was asleep at the moment.

He was starting to step closer to the biobed when he felt a hand on his shoulder and startled.

"That's not a good idea."

He turned around to find that the security officer had crept up behind him. "What is not a good idea?"

"In a few hours, you'll probably be getting a notification from the Yorktown District Court telling you that you're barred from having contact with him for a set period of time," she said. "Until the court order comes through, technically, you're allowed to talk to him, but I'd suggest you don't. Let him sleep it off." She used the hand on his shoulder to start to guide him away from Borya's bed. "Give yourself some space with your own thoughts without them being muddied up with whatever he has to say."

Pavel could feel his face getting hot and red under the bruises. She didn't say it like she was scolding him, but he couldn't help hearing it that way — as though she thought he was foolish for wanting to speak to Borya when he might try to talk his way out of this. There _was_ a part of him that wanted to hear what Borya had to say. They'd fought before, but Borya always apologized. Pavel had been telling McCoy the truth when he'd said he didn't plan to go back, but that didn't mean it was easy to walk away without saying goodbye.

He let the security officer escort him out of the hospital. She was mostly quiet as she took him to Borya's apartment, but she kept giving him this _look_. Pity. Pavel hated it. He gathered his things as quickly as he could, stuffing them all into a Starfleet issue duffle bag, and then let her escort him to the docks.

It was early morning by the time she released him in front of the Enterprise. The crew who weren't already living on the Enterprise were starting to report to the ship to work for the day in preparation for launch. At least a dozen people saw him getting escorted to the ship by Security. He wanted the chance to scream at Borya for that, but while he'd been at the apartment, the notification had come through on his comm telling him that they weren't allowed to contact each other until the Enterprise left dock. And anyway, they'd done more than enough screaming at each other in the past few months.

In fact, it felt like they'd done nothing but argue since Pavel had arrived at Yorktown. With Pavel on a deep space assignment, they'd only been able to communicate by sending messages and sharing the occasional vidcall for nearly a year — since Borya had last been able to travel to see him during shore leave — and it wasn't an easy way to sustain a relationship.

When Pavel had realized they would be resupplying at the Yorktown several times in the last half of the five year mission, Borya had applied to work on a research contract there so that they could see each other as often as possible. The first night they'd been docked, Borya had been waiting for him. He'd dragged Pavel back to his apartment, practically ripped his uniform off, and fucked him through the mattress.

Pavel was still sticky and lying in the wet patch on the sheets when they started fighting. He shouldn't have said anything that could ruin the good mood Borya was in right after coming, but Pavel was in a good mood too. He felt satisfied and well fucked for the first time in nearly a year, and though their relationship had its problems, it was comfortable and familiar to him. He felt happy, and all he said was, «I have missed you so much. The vidcalls are not enough.»

He'd felt Borya hum behind him in agreement. «I don't think I can be separated from you for that long again.»

Pavel smiled, because it was a nice thought, not to go so long without seeing each other again, but not a very realistic one. «If only it worked that way.»

He knew he'd said the wrong thing when Borya tensed against his back. «You act like it _couldn't_ work that way.»

Pavel rolled over so he could see Borya's face. That made it much easier to read him and, hopefully, to know what was coming his way before things went badly wrong. «I just mean that we don't really have a choice. You know that.»

«What you _mean_ is that even though you say you miss me, you would rather be on a starship than take a position at a base that allows civilians.» It was an old argument that Pavel hadn't planned to have again, at least not the first time they'd seen each other in a year.

«We are only a little over halfway through the five year tour,» he said. «We will have a few weeks at Yorktown while we resupply, but still I have almost two and a half years left aboard the Enterprise. And then I will have to see where Starfleet assigns me.»

«But you've spent the past two and a half years telling me over and over how hard it is to be separated—»

«It _is_ hard,» Pavel said, hand going to Borya's cheek to soothe him. «I miss you terribly. But I would never ask to be assigned anywhere but the Enterprise — certainly I would not request a transfer in the middle of this tour. This is an opportunity I cannot turn down.»

«So you make me do this for another two and a half years.» That had always been the plan, but Borya had a way of saying it like Pavel should have turned down the chance to be the youngest Chief Navigator in the Fleet on an unprecedented mission that would spend five years in largely uncharted deep space. He never seemed to understand that those kinds of opportunities could take years to come around again. «Two and a half more years,» Borya said. «And then what?»

Pavel had a feeling he should say that in two and a half years they would not be separated again, just to pacify Borya, but that wasn't the truth. «Well, when this tour is over, then ... I shall have to see. There are rumors that Kirk will be asked to take another five year mission after this one, and and I would be considered for that. And when that is over, I think Hikaru will probably be offered his own ship, and he will need a First Officer...»

Borya was not concerned with where Pavel saw his career in five or ten years. «Hikaru?» he said. Pavel knew that tone. «You spend too much time worrying about what _Hikaru_ wants.»

Pavel knew better by now — that it wasn't worth it to fight with Borya and it was best just to let him at least think he would have his way. But he couldn't help _trying_ to defend Hikaru. «He is my best friend. And he is married with a daughter.» Not a threat, which was how Borya always seemed to see him.

«Married to someone he never sees while he is alone on a starship _with you_.»

«Do not start this fight again,» he warned. Sometimes he regretted ever mentioning Hikaru's name back when they first became friends after the Narada mission. It always started an argument.

He started to get up out of the bed. The good mood he'd had was gone and now he just wanted a shower. He wanted to get Borya's come off his body and get away from this argument before it really blew up in his face, but Borya grabbed his wrist and held on tight.

«You are always calling me to tell me how _lonely_ it is out there. Maybe you are not so lonely as you say.» He was twisting Pavel's arm, and his grip was tight enough that Pavel didn't think he could free himself without hurting Borya. If anyone else had grabbed him like that, he wouldn't have hesitated, even if he broke their fingers.

«Stop,» he said. Borya's grip tightened. «You are hurting me — _stop!_ » And then Borya finally let go.

Pavel went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. He took his shower and then stayed in there for as long as he could get away with before he thought Borya might start trying to override the lock. He was relieved late that night when he got the notification to report back to the Enterprise at 0600 the next morning. Borya was furious.

The sleeve of his uniform covered the marks when he arrived on the bridge for their impromptu mission to Altamid. By the time Krall was done with them, he was so battered and black and blue that when he reported to medical, the ring of fading, finger-shaped bruises around his wrist hadn't garnered any special notice.

•••••

Pavel didn't have assigned quarters on Yorktown because he'd informed the billeting officer that he'd be staying with his partner while they were waiting for launch. Fortunately, they were now close enough to launch that the living quarters on the Enterprise-A were finished, and Pavel could stay on the ship instead of trying to find temporary accommodation for the next few days.

So far as Pavel knew, Hikaru had moved some of his things onto the Enterprise already, but he wasn't planning to stay on the ship full-time until they were ready to leave — so it was a surprise to see him waiting outside the door to Pavel's assigned quarters.

"Spock and Nyota watched Demora overnight," he said by way of explanation. "Ben and I came to get her. He took her home already. I just ... wanted to make sure you were alright."

Pavel nodded. "I am fine," he said as he hitched his duffle bag higher up on his shoulder and put in his old door code, hoping his personal settings from the old ship had already been transferred. When the door slid open, his shoulders relaxed. He went inside and tossed his bag down on the bed. Hikaru followed him.

"I'm sorry," Hikaru said once the door slid closed behind them.

"For what?"

He shrugged. "I just ... feel like I should have known what was going on."

Pavel sat down on the bed and sighed. He opened his duffle and started pulling things out to put away — mostly so he'd have something to do with his hands and wouldn't have to _look_ at Hikaru while they had this conversation.

"Nothing was going on," he said. "Borya and I had a fight."

"When Ben and I have a fight, no one ends up with a black eye or a broken collar bone."

"He was drunk. Things got out of hand."

"So he never hurt you before? At all?" Pavel didn't answer, but Hikaru nodded like that was all the answer he needed. "You know, I always thought it was weird that we'd been friends — _really good_ friends — for more than four years, but Ben and I had never met your boyfriend."

"Hikaru..." Pavel forced himself to look up at his friend, but Hikaru shook his head. Pavel was just going to have to let him get this all out.

"I always thought it was weird that you talked about him a lot, but I still barely knew _anything_ about him." At the time, Pavel had thought it made everything easier that way. He hadn't realized that Hikaru had been so aware of the strategic gaps. "I knew you started dating when you were still at the Academy, but not exactly how long you'd been together, or when or how you'd met. I knew you called him Borya, but I never knew what his full name was. I didn't know what he did for a living. I'd never even seen a picture of him." The pity on Hikaru's face was so much worse than it had been coming from the security officer.

"I guess I just now realized that I've been making assumptions and filling in gaps for myself. I figured he was ... maybe a student? Or a grad student? I knew you met him when you were still really young and he was older, but I guess I was picturing you, fifteen, maybe sixteen years old, meeting this guy who was eighteen or nineteen, and going on study dates like Ben and I used to when I was at the Academy and he was at Berkeley." It wasn't fair to be angry at Hikaru for the way his voice sounded so sad, but Pavel was. "That's not really what it was like for you, though, was it?"

"Not exactly," Pavel admitted, folding some clothes to put them away. They were wrinkled from being stuffed in the bag, but they were civvies, so he wasn't worried about them looking neat.

Hikaru sat down on the bed next to him and touched his shoulder. "When you met him..."

Pavel shrugged. "Whatever you are imagining — it was not that. He was nice to me. Sweet. I was a first year cadet. My Standard was not so good then. I could talk with him like I could not with anyone else I knew in San Francisco."

Hikaru had grown up in San Francisco. He'd grown up speaking Standard and Japanese equally comfortably. He'd started at the Academy when he was eighteen. He didn't understand what it was like to move to a new continent at thirteen, to spend all day immersed in a language he'd only spoken in a classroom before, and to feel like he didn't belong — and Pavel wasn't sure he could explain it.

"It was not easy to make friends when I was thirteen years old and had to speak to people with a translator pinned to my collar half the time. And all the other cadets were older — they wanted to go out drinking after classes, not have me following them around. I never had to worry that Borya didn't understand me, and he was never bothered about my age."

"He was an adult. Maybe he _should_ have been bothered by your age," Hikaru said. He squeezed Pavel's shoulder like that might soften what he said, but it very much had the opposite effect.

Pavel pulled away from Hikaru's hand. "Doctor McCoy already had this conversation with me. He called Yorktown Security and tried to convince me to have Borya arrested."

" _Good_."

" _No_." He stood up when Hikaru tried to reach for him again. "I do not want him arrested. I told them he had done nothing wrong and sent them away."

" _Why?_ "

"Because I love him. I loved him," he corrected himself, although he wasn't sure at this point which one was really the truth. "For years, I have loved him. And I do not wish to punish him for things which happened in the past — things which I _wanted_ him to do." But he could tell that Hikaru didn't understand this either.

"You don't have to protect him."

"If people I thought were my friends keep attacking him, then _maybe I do!_ " He hadn't meant to yell, but everything right now felt brittle. He went to open the door and gave Hikaru a pointed look. "I have not slept in twenty-four hours. I am on medical leave for the day. I just want to have a shower and go to bed." The ozone smell of the dermal regenerator was clinging to his skin, and he was hungry, and he just wanted to lie down and forget the past twenty-four hours had happened.

Hikaru nodded and stood up. He paused when he got to the door, though. "Come over for dinner tonight. Ben was really worried about you after last night, and Demora keeps asking about you." And Hikaru wanted to keep an eye on him after everything that had happened. Pavel knew that was the part he wasn't saying.

"I do not want to argue."

"No arguing," Hikaru promised. "Just dinner."

Despite the way he'd snapped at Hikaru only moments earlier, Pavel found himself nodding. "Come get me when you finish your shift."

Pavel might be frustrated with his best friend right now, but if Hikaru wanted to take him home to feed him and comfort him through a nasty break up, Pavel was inclined to let him.

•••••

Leonard was supposed to report for duty at the medbay on the new Enterprise at 0800 hours. After spending all night at the hospital with Chekov, he slunk in a little after 0930.

Christine looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Rough night?"

"Not in a good way," he grumbled.

"Well, brace yourself before you go into your office, because I think your day is about to get even more fun. The Captain and Commander Spock have been waiting for you in there for about fifteen minutes."

Of _course_ Spock had gone to Jim first thing in the morning after being woken up in the middle of the night by Chekov's vague 'medical emergency' — Leonard should've known he'd be answering questions.

When Leonard walked into his office, Spock was standing at ease, speaking softly with Jim, who was lounging in Leonard's chair with his feet up on the desk like he owned the place. When he heard Leonard come in, though, his feet very quickly dropped to the floor and his expression went instantly from relaxed to serious and concerned.

"How's Chekov?"

"He's recovering, but he'll be fine," Leonard said. "He'll be cleared for duty by the time we launch."

"I'm glad to hear it," Jim said, "but that really wasn't my primary concern. Spock told me Chekov had Sulu's husband waking you up in the middle of the night with some kind of medical emergency. And then I got a notification from Yorktown Security this morning that one of my lieutenants been in an altercation with a civilian contractor, and they were barred from contacting each other under threat of prosecution. Guess who that was."

"Jim, you know I can't give you medical details without Chekov's permission."

"So skip the medical details — what the hell happened?"

Leonard dithered for a moment over what to say, but Jim wasn't going to leave until Leonard told him _something_. "The civilian contractor was Chekov's ... boyfriend." He was uncomfortable using that word to describe Sorkin when 'abuser' seemed more fitting. He wanted to argue that the history of abuse made it difficult — or impossible — for Chekov to meaningfully consent even now that he was an adult. The whole relationship was a coercive, manipulative mess. But Chekov wasn't underage anymore and kept claiming that everything, at least up until they started beating the shit out of each other, was totally consensual.

He sighed, and Jim gave him a _look_ , clearly aware that there was a lot packed in to that hesitation before he said the word 'boyfriend,' but he didn't ask for elaboration, nor did Spock, who looked similarly curious — or, at least, he did that infuriating eyebrow thing.

"Near as I can tell, the guy was drunk, they got into a fight, he roughed Chekov up pretty bad, at which point, I guess, Chekov decided he'd had enough and hit back. _Hard_." Even a non-combatant like Leonard had a healthy dose of self defense and combat training at the Academy. Chekov was more than a match for an untrained, drunk civilian, even injured, which almost certainly meant that he had put off hitting back for quite a while before he'd reached a breaking point. And that left Leonard with some disturbing suspicions about what Chekov had learned to tolerate for the past eight years if it took broken bones to push him over the edge.

"The cops were called." Leonard neatly danced around who'd made the call and exactly why. "Neither one of them wanted to press charges, so..."

"So Security had a judge put a no contact order in place to keep it from happening again," Jim finished. He took a deep breath and then nodded. "Alright. So he's in the clear? I mean, it sounds like self defense, and Yorktown Security didn't make it sound like any charges were going to be filed unless they break the no contact order."

"I don't think he's going to be charged with assault, if that's what you mean." Leonard rested his hands on his hips and shored himself up for the next part of this conversation. "Since you're already here, I need your help with something. I need to get in touch with the Academy and the San Francisco police." He really did wish he could snatch those eyebrows right off Spock's face.

Jim's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because as a physician, I'm a mandated reporter under Federation law."

Leonard could tell that Jim didn't catch on to the nuances of what he was saying right away, but Spock clearly did. "The Federation's mandated reporting laws only apply in cases of suspected abuse of children or vulnerable adults."

At that, Jim really looked confused. "Is this still about Chekov? I don't think he qualifies as a _vulnerable adult_ ," he said.

Spock inclined his head. "I do not believe that the doctor was suggesting that he does."

All three of them were silent for a beat, and then Jim swore. "He said something to you while you were at the hospital. That's why you want to talk to the Academy, right? You think something happened to him while he was a cadet? When he was still underage?"

Leonard didn't answer directly. "Jim, when I report this kind of abuse to Starfleet, I'm supposed to do it in a way that doesn't let anyone figure out who the victim is, at least not without their consent. You backed me into a corner by showing up in my office this morning. Don't make me break confidentiality any more than I already have."

Jim looked frustrated the way he always did when something was out of his control, but nodded. "What do you need?"

"To be able to make secure calls to the Academy and the San Francisco Police so that I can report this without having a sensitive, confidential report blasted all over subspace," Leonard said.

"The communications systems on the Enterprise aren't up to that just yet — probably not until the end of the week." Jim ran his hand over his hair, ruffling it up, then took a deep breath and nodded. "I'll have Uhura take you to the Central Communications building for Yorktown. She'll be able to get you a private room and open up a secure channel. If she asks any questions, just tell her there's confidential medical information involved and leave it at that."

Leonard really didn't want to drag anyone else into this, but Uhura already knew something was going on after last night, and she could be counted on to keep any speculation to herself. "Thank you."

"If you need anything else..." Jim said, finally vacating Leonard's chair.

"I'll let you know."

•••••

After several hours in the Central Communications building making uncomfortable subspace calls, Leonard made it back to medbay late that afternoon to find Christine taking pre-launch inventory. She gave him a quick nod as she looked up from her work. "You're popular today," she said. "Lieutenant Chekov is waiting in the private exam room with some hellacious bruises on his face. Geoff offered to see him about thirty minutes ago, but he said he'd wait for you to get back."

"I'm on it." Leonard wasn't sure if he was surprised or not. Chekov had seemed pretty upset with him that morning, but on the other hand, a new doctor would mean a fresh round of questions.

He took a moment to pull himself together, then grabbed a tricorder and a dermal regenerator and headed into the private exam room. Chekov was sitting cross-legged on the disabled biobed, messing around with something on a PADD.

"You're supposed to be resting today, not working," Leonard said, gently chiding but mostly amused. Getting the kind of high-drive geniuses that Starfleet attracted to put down their work when they were sick or injured was near impossible. Leonard was as guilty of working through a sick day as anyone.

Chekov didn't seem amused when he looked up. "It is not work. I am replying to the message I just got from the San Francisco Police." He fixed Leonard with a hard glare. "You said you would do your best to keep Security out of this if that was what I wanted, and now you have reported me _twice_."

The good humor fell from Leonard's face and he braced himself. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have promised that," he said. "But I didn't report _you_ — I reported _him_. The second I have reason to believe that someone has ever sexually abused a child, even if that child is an adult now, I'm legally obligated to make a report."

Chekov's whole body was tensed, like he might start vibrating with the force of anger that had no where to go. "I would not have said anything to you if I had known that."

"I know," Leonard said. "And I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. But I'm not sorry I made those reports."

He held up the tricorder. "I know you're angry with me, but someone needs to check that your bones knitted together properly and finish healing those bruises. Do you want me to go get Doctor M'Benga to treat you?"

"So another doctor can start asking questions and filing reports about me?" Chekov snapped. "No, thank you." He shook his head and then the tension left him and his body slumped, like the air had been let out of his anger and all he was left with was exhaustion. "Just ... do whatever it is you have to do so that I can go back to work tomorrow."

•••••

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kind of glosses by the difference between reporting to the police vs. Starfleet, and I don't know that I'll spend much more time on it in the future. I went with the idea that, because of the potential for professional backlash or retaliation, McCoy would not be allowed to report Chekov's name to Starfleet or the Academy without his consent, especially since he is not currently underage or attending school. But, for the safety of future cadets, he is still required to report to the Academy that an underage cadet was abused so that they can take future precautions. (Again, this is not a perfect representation of how things actually work today.)
> 
> In the next chapter: a flashback to Chekov's Academy days and dinner with the Sulus.
> 
> My writing blog is nearly empty, but I'd be happy to have you come talk to me on [tumblr](http://billiholic.tumblr.com/).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> «Text between chevron quotation marks is spoken in Russian.» 
> 
> There is no graphic dub-con/non-con or in this chapter, but, as usual for this story, there's talk about sexual abuse, including sex with a minor, and an abuser tries to justify his behavior. Also: coercive control.
> 
> I haven't read any of the novels or other materials set at Starfleet Academy. I've chosen to write it as operating along the lines of a military academy when it comes to discipline. 
> 
> I hope people ship Hikaru and Ben Sulu, because there's quite a bit of them here.

  
McCoy finished healing Pavel's bruises with the dermal regenerator and checked the strength of his newly mended collar bone. Pavel waved his arm and rolled his shoulder as the doctor took scans and then, finally satisfied, McCoy told him that he seemed to have full strength and range of motion again, and he was officially cleared for duty.

It was all less miserable than Pavel had imagined it would be — until he was getting ready to leave and McCoy asked, in the most professional way he could manage, if Pavel was willing to tell him what he planned to say to the San Fransisco police. He clearly wasn't surprised by Pavel's answer, but he also wasn't pleased.

Doctor McCoy was upset with him for not cooperating with Yorktown Security or the SFPD, but Pavel had _told him_ from the start that he didn't want Security involved. His relationship with Borya had been totally legal for years now, and Pavel hadn't even realized anyone _could_ drag the police into things at this point. But there'd been a time when it had always been in the back of his mind that if someone asked about their relationship — particularly the police or any Starfleet official — then he would have to lie.

They were mostly little half-truths. When he spent the day with Borya, he was spending the day 'with a friend.' If someone heard them speaking to each other, Borya was 'a friend from Russia,' which was technically true but a little misleading — their hometowns were six hundred kilometers apart and they'd never met until Pavel came to San Francisco. When he disappeared from campus, he was 'studying at a friend's apartment.' And he did study at Borya's apartment. They just did other things as well.

Their only other close call with the police had come near the end of Pavel's second year at the Academy, after he spent one of those days studying at Borya's apartment. And then 'studying.' And then putting his underwear back on and still failing to escape Borya's wandering hands for long enough to finish getting dressed and eat some leftover pad thai that he'd planned to have for dinner because the mess hall would be closed by the time he got back to campus.

Eventually, he told Borya that he had to go to bed early because he needed to stop by the navigation lab before his first class in the morning — that was enough to get Borya to let him go. He could grab something from one of the bodegas near campus and eat in his dorm before he went to bed.

«You are just going straight back to the dorm?» Borya said.

It was easier to leave out the stop at the bodega. «Yes.»

«Send me a picture when you get home.»

Pavel nodded. It was the kind of thing Borya had asked for often — pictures where he could see Pavel's surroundings so that he knew where Pavel was at all times. It had seemed a little strange at first, but Borya got upset when Pavel said it was silly. He'd accused Pavel several times of lying about his whereabouts until he sent a picture or vidcalled to show Borya where he was.

He got a replicated sandwich from the bodega — no fresh food at the deli counter that late in the evening. He would have rather ate the leftover pad thai at Borya's apartment, but the sandwich would do. It was only just after 2100 when he got back to his room. His roommate was shaving in at the sink in the corner and a nice, civilian shirt was laid out on his bed, like he might be getting ready to go out.

Pavel had never been particularly close to his roommate, but Kang Cheol-Su had started the Academy at sixteen and was therefore closer to Pavel's age than most of the other cadets. He didn't seem to actively _hate_ sharing a room with someone younger the way Pavel's first year roommate had. Sometimes they talked to each other about being far away from home, and how strange it was to be surrounded by people who spoke nothing but Standard all the time, and what it was like to miss the language they each grew up speaking. Mostly, though, they were good at being friendly and staying out of each other's way.

The first thing Pavel did when he got back to the dorm was to take a picture of himself where the bed was clearly visible, so it was obvious that he was in his room.

Cheol-Su caught sight of him in the mirror, then turned around and gave him a strange look. "What're you doing?"

"Just letting a friend know that I got home safely," Pavel said.

"Right." Cheol-Su raised an eyebrow, but then turned back to the mirror to finish shaving. "I'm going out with some friends tonight — just to get food, not to a bar or anything where they'll check your age, so if you wanted to come..."

Pavel looked at the sad, replicated sandwich sitting in its wrapper on his bed. "I told my friend I was going home for the night."

Cheol-Su shrugged. "You did go home for the night. And now I'm asking if you want to get some food. Why does your friend care if you go back out?"

And that had made a lot of sense to Pavel at the time. It didn't seem like it counted as lying to Borya. It was just a change of plans. "I guess ... okay. It sounds like fun."

The nice shirt and the shaving turned out to be all about impressing a girl Cheol-Su liked. They met up with her and two of Cheol-Su's other friends at diner near campus that was commonly frequented by cadets. Pavel didn't know Cheol-Su's friends very well, but they were kind to him and included him in their conversation, and it was funny seeing Cheol-Su try to flirt without being _too_ obvious about it.

Pavel hadn't realized until months later that Borya was using the location data from his comm to make sure he was always where he said he was — that the photos were probably more about keeping him honest and less about giving Borya actual information that he wouldn't have had otherwise. But the first time he got an inkling that Borya was keeping tabs on him was that night, when he showed up at the diner. Pavel spotted him standing by the door, watching, and told Cheol-Su that he was going to the bathroom so that he had an excuse to slip away.

At the time, he didn't even think to ask how Borya had found him. He could tell by the look on Borya's face that he was in trouble.

«You said you were going back to your dorm,» Borya said.

Pavel nodded. «I did go back to my dorm,» he said. «Then my roommate asked if I wanted to have dinner, so I said yes.»

«Why is he taking you to dinner?» It was not entirely new to Pavel, this jealous streak, but it had never been this overtly expressed before.

«He is not _taking me to dinner_. I paid my own way.»

«I thought you needed to be up early to study.» Pavel didn't dare tell him that he'd said that because he hadn't wanted to have sex. «I think it's time for you to come home.»

«Let me finish my dinner and I will go straight home — to stay this time,» he promised.

«I meant home with me,» Borya said. «Now.» He wrapped his hand around Pavel's upper arm to lead him out of the restaurant.

«Let me say goodbye first.» Pavel tried to pull away to go back to the table. Borya held on, but Cheol-Su was already coming up to check on him.

His eyes were fixed on the way Borya was holding on to Pavel's arm. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing," Pavel said. "I need to go. I will see you later, yes?"

Cheol-Su frowned. He glanced at Borya, then met Pavel's eyes. "Is everything alright?" he asked softly.

Pavel nodded. "Yes — I just should not have come out tonight. I will see you back at our room."

But he didn't end up going back to the dorm that night. The next morning, Borya dropped him off in front of the dormitory about half an hour before his first class, so he would have just enough time to put on his uniform and get to his classroom.

Or rather, he _would_ have had just enough time. But when he got to his room, the door was open, and Cheol-Su was inside talking with two officers from Starfleet Campus Security.

Pavel's heart started to race. "What is going on?"

Cheol-Su turned around sharply when he heard Pavel's voice and a look of profound relief crossed his face. "Pavel! Are you alright?"

Pavel's whole body tensed. This was very, very bad. "Of course. What is going on here?"

Cheol-Su looked at him like he was crazy. "Some guy showed up and dragged you out of the diner last night and then you never came home — I was worried."

"So you called Security?" There had always been an understanding that cadets didn't rat each other out for breaking curfew. They'd both spent nights away from the dorm without a pass before. But Pavel did usually tell Cheol-Su when he wouldn't be home for the night, and Borya had never made a public scene before.

Cheol-Su looked apologetic. He spoke softly, although Pavel guessed that the security officers could still hear them. "That guy was talking to you in Russian, so I didn't know what he was saying, but you looked upset. And then he dragged you off, and then you didn't come back to the dorm... I didn't know what had happened to you. Maybe I should have waited to call Security, but that guy really freaked me out."

"I'm sorry. I did not mean to make you worry. I'm fine." He looked at the security officers. "Really. I am fine. I spent the night with a friend." He looked back at Cheol-Su. "I should have let you know, but I am fine."

Cheol-Su didn't look entirely convinced, but he nodded. Pavel hadn't had anyone worry about him like that since he'd left home. It gave him a warm feeling of belonging and put a nervous weight in the pit of his stomach. If Borya knew that his roommate was asking questions and and calling Security, it would be a big problem.

The security officers referred him to his academic advisor for discipline for spending the night off campus without a pass, but they didn't ask more about where he'd been or who he'd been with. He was late to his class — another referral for discipline — and ended up confined to quarters for the weekend as a punishment. He told Borya it was all because he was late to class, and that made Borya angry, but not nearly as angry as he would have been if he knew the campus police had been called.

A few weeks later, when Cheol-Su asked if Pavel wanted to room with him again next year, Pavel said he'd already promised to room with a friend from one of his classes. When the new academic year started, he was randomly assigned a new roommate who mostly ignored him, and that made everything easier.

Two years later, Cadet Kang Cheol-Su was killed in action on the USS Farragut.

•••••

When Hikaru had taken this five year, deep space assignment, he and Ben hadn't planned to uproot Demora from San Francisco. They'd had long conversations about how much travel was reasonable so that they could see each other when Hikaru had shore leave. They'd committed to trying not to go more than six months without being together as a family, but that had turned into ten months, and even thirteen months at one point just because of a run of bad luck. Demora had been two and a half when the five year mission began, and traveling to meet Hikaru on different planets and space stations with a toddler in tow, often on short notice, just hadn't always been possible.

The separation was rough, but Demora needed stability. And Ben had signed up for this when he married a Starfleet pilot with big ambitions. Five years in deep space could make a career. Hikaru said he was going to be an admiral, and Ben believed him. He believed _in_ him.

And then Krall happened, and the Enterprise had been destroyed, and Hikaru was grounded for months while the new ship was still being built. Demora was starting school on Yorktown now. Ben had taken leave from his job in San Francisco, and eventually resigned. The new Enterprise had a resupply scheduled at Yorktown nine months after launch, if everything went according to plan, and at least one more stop at Yorktown was planned before their five years was up. There was no point in Ben and Demora going back to San Francisco. Their life was here now, at least for the next few years.

There were growing pains. Having Hikaru home for months at a time meant teaching him to be a hands-on dad again, not the fun dad who let Demora have whatever she wanted and left the discipline to Ben when his ship took off. They'd gotten out of the habit of being in each other's space all the time — Ben nagged too much about Hikaru's bachelor eating habits, and Hikaru snapped that he could never find anything in a house that wasn't cleaned and organized to Starfleet's exacting standards. And then they took a deep breath, and Hikaru went for a walk, and when they came back to each other, Hikaru agreed to to set a good example for Demora by eating a healthy meal without his PADD in front of him, and Ben agreed to set aside a day when they could organize and try to mitigate the clutter and chaos of civilian life with a kindergartener.

After a difficult few weeks to start, Ben had been relieved to realize that they were getting through the days with fewer and fewer squabbles, and more smiles and laughter, and it hit him harder than he'd known it would. They were going to be okay. They still worked — as a couple, as co-parents. Nothing about being a Fleet spouse would ever be easy, but the separations weren't going to break them. Test them, maybe, but they could make it through.

He'd been so focused on having Hikaru home, and on the stress and joy of that reunion, that it hadn't occurred to him at first that Hikaru's little shadow was surprisingly scarce. Ben first met Pasha in the media flurry after the Narada, and he'd been to their house in San Francisco a number of times between the short missions the Enterprise had been running before the start of their five year tour. Hikaru's stories about life on the Enterprise were full of what he and Pasha got up to — including some 'full disclosure' stories about a few wild nights partying during shore leave on Risa when neither Ben nor Pasha's boyfriend had come to meet them. Ben trusted Hikaru too much to worry about what he got up to on shore leave, but he was glad he and Pasha were looking out for each other as they drank their way through pleasure planet bars. He'd assumed Pasha's boyfriend would feel the same.

Ben didn't know the boyfriend and had never given him a whole lot of thought, although he supposed it was a little strange that they'd never met when they'd all been in San Francisco, especially since he'd had the impression that Pasha lived with him. Hikaru told him the boyfriend was living on Yorktown now, and Ben assumed that was why they saw so little of Pasha, even though he and Hikaru were usually joined at the hip. _Of course_ he'd be spending every spare moment with his partner while he had the chance.

The night Pasha ended up in the hospital, Ben felt guilty for not having asked more questions, but it was nothing compared to what Hikaru felt. He was a mess after McCoy took Pasha to the hospital. Ben took him home and tried to get him to rest, but Hikaru only managed a couple hours of fitful sleep. He was up painfully early and dragged Ben back to the ship so they could pick up Demora before he had to report for duty.

"Comm me when you've had a chance to check on him," Ben said. Demora was dozing as she rested against his shoulder, legs wrapped around his waist. She was really getting much too big for him to carry her around like this anymore, but he was reluctant to put her down, even though his arms ached. Fortunately, it seemed she'd actually slept pretty well on the sofa in Spock's quarters. It was a relief to Ben — it meant he didn't need to keep her home from school and might get a chance to catch up on a little sleep himself.

"I will," Hikaru said. He rested his forehead against Ben's for a moment and then took a deep breath. "I'm going to see if I can get him to come over tonight. I just..."

"I get it," Ben said. He pressed a quick kiss to Hikaru's lips. "I get it. He needs someone looking out for him right now."

Hikaru nodded and managed to give him a little smile, then tucked Demora's hair behind her ear and brushed his fingers across her cheek. Her nose wrinkled in her sleep, but she didn't wake up. "If you don't get going, she's going to be late for school."

Ben couldn't help grinning at that. "For the record? When you do the 'responsible dad' thing, it gets me a little hot." It was good to see Hikaru laugh after the night they'd had, even if it was just for a second. Ben was going to miss this when the Enterprise left dock. He gave Hikaru one more quick kiss. "Comm me when you have a chance."

They didn't get to have a long conversation when Hikaru called later, but he did say that Pasha was coming over for dinner. Ben made spaghetti because it was easy, and full of carbs, and Pasha had grown up _a lot_ in the past few years — he'd filled out and broadened — but that underfed, gangly look he'd had as a teenager was still clinging to him.

Demora launched herself into Pasha's arms the second he came through the door and immediately started to show him what she was learning in her dance class. ("Did you know that ballet was invented in Russia?" Demora did not, but she was an excellent audience for Pasha's story.) It gave Ben a chance to pull Hikaru aside and ask how Pasha was — for real, when he wasn't putting on a show for their daughter.

"We had a fight about it this morning," Hikaru said.

"Why would you _fight_ with him about this?" Ben said. "What's there to fight about?"

"Evidently McCoy tried to get the guy arrested at the hospital, and Pasha's very much _not_ on board with that because he _loves_ him, and then he felt like I was siding with McCoy..." Hikaru sighed. "So we're not bringing it up unless he does first, okay? Just ... make him feel like everything's normal."

So they had dinner. And Pasha ate like a twenty-one year old — enough to make the mind boggle — and he was more subdued than usual, but kept up a steady patter of conversation with Demora about dance class and school. She was just learning her letters now, and Pasha introduced her to the idea that there were other languages with other symbols besides the ones used in Standard. He taught her to write her name in Russian, and then told her she should ask her father to teach her to write in Japanese. Hikaru's Japanese was quite good, but Ben's was almost non-existent, and their plans to raise her bilingual had mostly gone by the wayside. Hikaru seemed tickled that she was suddenly showing such an interest.

Eventually, Ben gathered her up to put her to bed, and Hikaru and Pasha opened a bottle of whiskey that Ben suspected they had picked up on their way home because he wasn't in the habit of keeping much alcohol in the house. He left them to get tipsy at the kitchen table and went to bed early, and a few hours later, Hikaru came in, a little unsteady on his feet, and woke him up by sitting down heavily on the edge of the mattress and fumbling as he got undressed.

"Pasha's spending the night on the sofa," he said.

Ben rolled over to watch Hikaru get ready for bed. His skin was a little flushed from the alcohol, and it reminded Ben of nights ten years ago when they were first dating and would fall into bed together, just a little too drunk to do much more than grope each other a bit and fall asleep.

"I hope you drank some water," he said, "because otherwise you're going to have one hell of a headache in the morning."

Hikaru made a noise in the back of his throat and waved his hand. "I'll be fine."

He did have a hell of a headache in the morning. So did Pasha. But the shadow that had been hanging over them the day before seemed to lift just a little bit.

•••••

Despite the hangover, Pavel felt better than he'd felt in days as he and Hikaru took the hovertrain to the docks that morning, both of them nursing flasks of tea that Ben said would help with the headache.

"I don't ever get hangovers," Ben had told them over breakfast. "Do you know why?"

"Because you haven't had more than two drinks in one night since you threw up on the beach that time we spent the weekend in Cabo," Hikaru said.

"No," Ben said. And then when Hikaru started smirking at him, he said, "Alright, yes. _But also_ because I know to drink water before I go to bed, and then green tea when I wake up."

"Where's Cabo?" Demora asked. She was playing with her rice and egg more than eating it as she listened to the adults talk.

"It's on Earth," Hikaru said. "In Mexico. South of where we used to live in San Francisco."

Demora nodded, as though this were a satisfactory answer, and took a few bites of food before she asked, "What's a hangover?"

Hikaru fled the table to get dressed, and Ben had to handle that one.

Pavel wasn't sure if it was the placebo effect or not, but he had to admit that Ben's tea certainly _felt_ like it was helping by the time he was on the train.

"Please tell me you're on the bridge today," Hikaru said as they pulled into the stop for the docks.

Pavel shook his head. "I told Mr. Scott I would be down in Engineering with him yesterday, and I have already had to put him off once."

Hikaru scowled. "Damnit. I need you on the bridge so I don't bite Mitchell's head off. This is the third day I'm going to be stuck arguing with him over minute recalibrations to the autopilot. There's a good chance I'm going to strangle him before we launch."

Pavel hid his grin behind his flask. "Let me see what Mr. Scott needs from me. With any luck, I will be up there by this afternoon." He shook his head, his smile fading a little as he thought about how _behind_ that day of medical leave had left him. He sighed. "I need as much time on the bridge as I can get. The last time Starfleet pushed a navigation update, I spent fifteen hours debugging and patching the rubbish they put on my system. God only knows what they installed yesterday while I had to leave Kelso in charge."

They had just boarded the ship when Pavel's comm started to buzz. He glanced down to see who was calling him. "I have to take this."

"Comm me when you're heading to lunch," Hikaru said. "I'll come meet you."

Pavel nodded and waited for Hikaru to start to head up to the bridge before he opened a side panel in the corridor and ducked into one of the jefferies tubes, sitting down cross legged, and closing the panel behind him before answering his comm. «You're not supposed to be calling me.»

«You're not supposed to be answering,» Borya said.

Pavel didn't try to argue with that. «What do you want?»

«You're leaving soon. I want to see you. I want to say goodbye.»

It was hardly the first time Borya asked him to bend — or break — the rules for him, but the police were involved this time. It was a little bigger than breaking curfew at the Academy. «You know we can't.»

«That's what you say when you're being stubborn. _I can't, I can't, I have no choice_.»

«I know I have a choice,» Pavel said. «I choose not to get in trouble with the police. And I promised that I wouldn't be alone with you.»

«Promised who? Hikaru?» Pavel had meant Doctor McCoy, but he wasn't surprised that Borya's mind went straight to Hikaru. «I know you spent the night with him.»

«I slept on his sofa while he was in bed with his husband.» It had become such second nature to have to justify where he'd been and who he'd been with that it took him a moment to realize that there was no good reason for Borya to know that he'd spent the night at Hikaru's apartment. «Did you _follow_ me?»

«I was trying to make sure you were alright.»

«If Hikaru saw you, you could have been arrested.»

«I didn't follow you through the street, idiot. That isn't the only way to keep an eye on someone.»

Which meant at some point, he'd bugged Pavel's comm again. He'd tried to be careful about never letting it out of his sight when Borya was around, but evidently not careful enough. He'd deal with that later. «You had best stay well away from the docks. Hikaru and Doctor McCoy both know what you look like, and both of them _will_ call Security if they see you.»

«Doctor McCoy? Is that the doctor that called Security to come interrogate me in the hospital?»

«He's the doctor who saved your life when you were lying unconscious on the floor of your apartment.» That was, perhaps, a bit of an exaggeration — Borya had been in more danger of choking on his own vomit than of dying from the actual alcohol poisoning and concussion. It still seemed like he ought to be grateful to Doctor McCoy for insisting he be admitted to the hospital, though.

«And whose fault was that?»

The anger that hadn't had anywhere to go the previous morning came spilling out. «You _broke my collar bone_ ,» Pavel said. «I had a black eye when Security brought me back to my ship. Do you know what that looked like to everyone who saw me?»

«You told that doctor that I molested you.» The way Borya's voice got low — Pavel knew _that_ was why they weren't supposed to be contacting each other right now.

«I didn't say any such thing to him. He was making assumptions.»

«Somehow I doubt this doctor got the idea all on his own. You said _something_ to him to make him think that way.» Pavel wasn't entirely sure what Borya would do if he admitted exactly what he'd said to McCoy, so he stayed silent. «This is what happens when we argue, is it? Suddenly you're telling people I molested you? You can't molest someone who is begging for it, Pasha.»

«He's known me as long as I've been on the Enterprise,» Pavel said. «He saw that I was hurt and he was worried.»

«You know, you wouldn't have been hurt at all if you didn't go out of your way to make me angry. You certainly weren't hurt so badly that you couldn't break a bottle over my head.»

The panel to the jefferies tube opened and suddenly Pavel was face to face with a very startled, confused crewman in a sanitation jumpsuit.

"Lieutenant?" The crewman dropped the tools he was holding started to give a hesitant salute before stopping halfway through and looking lost. After all, there wasn't any protocol for encountering lieutenants making personal calls while hiding in maintenance access points.

«I have to go,» Pavel said, abruptly terminating the call with Borya and fumbling to stuff his comm into his pocket.

Then he pulled together as much dignity as he could manage while crouched in a jefferies tube and put on his best command voice. "Crewman," he said, giving a sharp nod as he climbed back out into the corridor. "Carry on."

He turned and headed for the engineering deck, leaving the baffled crewman standing in front of the open panel.

•••••

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Crewman' in the context of the end of this chapter denotes an enlisted rank (Crewman First Class/Crewman Second Class/Crewman Third Class), not 'a member of the crew' in the generic sense. I mention this primarily because ... this crewman will be back!
> 
> My apologies if the next chapter takes a little longer. I'm starting a new job and the drafts of the next couple chapters are still in fairly rough shape, but I'm chipping away at them!
> 
> In the next chapter: McCoy doesn't get what he wants, but he might be getting just what Chekov needs.
> 
> I'd be happy to have you come talk to me on [tumblr](http://billiholic.tumblr.com/).


End file.
